Ammon Hennacy’s “One Man Revolution”

“All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.”

Today we’ll dive into the archives and take a look at an episode from the life
of “one man revolution” Ammon Hennacy, as filtered through the press. From the
28 May 1954Eugene
Register-Guard, which clearly put a lot of stock in eye-catching
headlines:

Ammon Hennacy Visits; About as We Expected

Some readers may remember that last February
we wrote a report on a book which found its way to the desk — “The
Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist,” by Ammon Hennacy. Now we have been
visited by the Hennacy himself. He has been speaking to Quakers and others in
this vicinity on his way back from a Canadian tour where he called on the
radical Dukhobors.

Mr. Hennacy is just about as we expected he would be — a slender, wiry, gray
haired little man with the merry blue eye of the Irish to brighten the fervor
of the zealot. Maybe it requires a sense of humor to be a successful zealot.
He told us a little bit about his techniques:

“I’m going to New York pretty soon to participate in a retreat. After that I
shall fast for nine days, and after that I shall meet some speaking
engagements with various pacifist groups. After the fasting I won’t be so
loud, but fasting comes easy once you get the hang of it.

“Before I leave Phoenix, I always send a little note to the tax collectors
and tell them just what money I have received and where I can be found, but
that I’m not going to pay a penny of tax on it. I always tell them that the
worst people in the world are the hangmen, and the taxpayers come next.”

Hennacy is full of little anecdotes about his amusing adventures with
vigilante squads and ordinary police:

“When a cop asks me, please not to sell The Catholic
Worker on his corner, I just grin and move on and so we get along.”

Crusading is a way of life with some people. Hennacy displays pictures of his
two beautiful, musician daughters like any other “proud pappa.” He boasts of
the friends he has found in his rambles through all parts of the United
States. He seems to have found something which conformists often fail to find — happiness. We fumbled for the old Quaker saying, but Mr. Hennacy finished
it:

“All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.”

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